Tennessee College Accused Of Profiling Black Students For Drug Test

The university denies the allegation, saying that racial profiling was not involved.

Two African-Americans students at Tennessee’s Trevecca Nazarene University are demanding an apology from school officials after they were allegedly singled out for suspicion of drug use, WSMV-TV reported.

“So they get called out, pulled out of bed after midnight, have to submit to a drug test, threatened with a judicial hearing and no apology. No looking into anyone else to see who else it could have been,” Terrence French, a mentor to one of the students, tweeted about the incident.

Just heard a story from one of my students that made me so angry! She is a student at @Trevecca here in Nashville. I also attended the university but now oversee a mentor program she is involved in. So today at our monthly meeting she tells me of another troubling event…

comes pulling on her leg waking her up telling her to wake up saying that she smells weed in the room. She then begins to go through her room and her closet looking for the "weed" she smelt. She is asking my student and her roommate. The only two BLACK females on the floor and

French, known as “Cirvant” on Twitter, said his mentee and one of her roommates, who is also Black, were ordered to take a drug test after a resident assistant smelled marijuana on their floor and searched their room but found no drugs. The racial profiling accusation stems from the resident assistant bypassing the Black students’ two suite mates, who are White. Indeed, the only students questioned and ordered to submit to drug testing were the only two African-American students on the floor. The mother of one of the students took to Facebook to demand justice for them, the NBC affiliate said.

An apology from the university, however, is unlikely. University officials point to a policy that requires them to conduct a search and a drug test when there is reasonable cause to believe that students are in possession of narcotics. After a meeting with the students and their families, the university said there is “no indication of targeting in this incident,” a statement said. Meanwhile, the mood on campus is tense, a student told the news outlet. He explained that the campus is divided on whether the search and drug tests were racially motivated.